


Letters to the Abyss (The Endless Wait Remix)

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Epistolary, Family Dynamics, Getting Together, Good Sister Morgana, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation, Waiting, good uther
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16621178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: At 13, he knows his dreams are peculiar, knows the terrors that wake him at night are unfounded. He cannot explain to them, to his sister and his father, the fear in him. Low and twisting and sticky in the worst ways. Sometimes, when he angers Morgana and she lunges at him, she is not 14 with pigtails and purple skirts. She is older, so much older to his mind, with wild, tangled hair and a tattered dress. She is more than angry, more than upset over spilled tea and plastic ponies. There is murder in her eyes he cannot explain to her.





	Letters to the Abyss (The Endless Wait Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Endless Wait](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1520564) by [Michaelssw0rd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michaelssw0rd/pseuds/Michaelssw0rd). 



> A special thanks to Michaelssw0rd for letting me do this.

At 13, he knows his dreams are peculiar, knows the terrors that wake him at night are unfounded. He cannot explain to them, to his sister and his father, the fear in him. Low and twisting and sticky in the worst ways. Sometimes, when he angers Morgana and she lunges at him, she is not 14 with pigtails and purple skirts. She is older, so much older to his mind, with wild, tangled hair and a tattered dress. She is more than angry, more than upset over spilled tea and plastic ponies. There is murder in her eyes he cannot explain to her.

His father too, is more than a man in a suit. He is a man with a crown, a man with a sword. When he raises his hand, it is not to silence a sullen boy, but to break his spirit. He doesn’t cup Arthur’s cheek to express concern or worry. The king never looks at Arthur with warmth the way the father does. How does he explain to him, the difference between the crown and the tie? How does he tell his father he flinches because he is afraid the crown will bruise his cheek for daring to defy a direct command?

He curls under a blanket he can’t explain; a blanket he forced his father to commision, so bright red and stitched with a crest he knows the world has forgotten. When he wakes, thrashing and screaming, so lost in dream he wets himself, Uther calls for help. Screams it really, begs any therapist, pays any price. “Fix him. Fix my son. He’s unwell.”

The therapist is older, with kind eyes and stern brows, and he reminds Arthur of someone he can't quite remember. Someone with secrets, but the kind meant to protect. The therapist asks him what he is afraid of, so Arthur tells him.

He tells him of knights and of swords and of magic. Of a mother killed by his birth, and a sister betrayed by his loyalties. He tells him of a servant who lied, and a brother who betrayed, and of so many innocents burned at the stakes. He tells him, of smoke and ash that chokes his throat, of the scent of a girl, so innocent and sweet it clogs his nose. How he loved her, but not properly. How at the time she was the only one he could love.

He does not tell the therapist of the bodies he himself was responsible, or of the voice that lingers beyond sleep into reality, holding conversations with him. The therapist looks him in the eyes, like he knows what Arthur isn’t saying, but he shrugs when he speaks to Uther. “Your boy is just imaginative. He will grow out of this. Perhaps he needs more socialization. Less tutors. Put him in a school, close to home. Have him make friends with children his own age.”

Uther does as he is told. Arthur is surprised, having not known his father, in either sleep or wake, to follow the advice of others. He does not know how he feels though, when he walks into the brick building and he sees a flash of wild dark hair and troublesome eyes. “You’re not drunk?”

He knows it is the wrong thing to say, that it is not how one greets another, but the eyes just laugh. “Not yet, princess. Give it a few years though…”

He laughs, high and manic, when Gwaine calls him princess. If Gwaine thinks him insane, all the better.

Uther however, remains unconvinced when Arthur takes to sleepwalking. He thrashes and sobs, fights everyone, begging them to “take me back, take me back! I must go to him!”

“Who? Son! Who are you returning to?”

Arthur, asleep and not, stares at his father with damp eyes and holds Gwaine’s hand. Gwaine, who had spent the night, asks him, “Arthur, who are you afraid for?”

“I do not know his name. Only that he is the one. He is the most important person I have ever met. And I love him.”

The next doctor is also old, with eyes too wise for this life. His office is filled with books, dusty old tomes he often refers to. He doesn’t ask many questions. He doesn’t offer many answers. He just sits in his seat and lets Arthur day dream until he is ready.

“I am here, and I am so far from here.”

“Fifteen can very much feel that way.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No. I am here, in this office, but I am there on the bank, staring into the trees. He is not waiting for me, where he said he would be. I am waiting, so desperately waiting, and so is he. He knows it is not time and yet he begs.” Arthur begins to cry, silent tears down his cheeks he is unaware of. “I cannot save him, just as he could not save me. He is to find me.”

Again and again and again he dreams of the murky water, and a gentle lady, and the forest that has been replaced. He cannot see who he is waiting on, cannot feel their breath or follow their heartbeat. “Why won’t he come to me? Please! Tell him I am ready!”

The doctor strokes his beard and sighs, “Precocious and stifled. Perhaps something small to ease his moods. Encourage him to join a team, make more friends. Don’t encourage the dreams.”

Arthur dutifully swallows the pills, but he makes his father let him take lessons in horseback riding and fencing. He wanted sword lessons, but Uther refused, terrified that it was too close to entertaining the madness.

He meets Lance and Leon when he falls from a dappled mare, and Gwaine is quick to introduce himself when Arthur can only stare. “A bit slow, my princess. But he’s a good lad.”

He beats Gwen and Elyan into the ground, when he forgets the rules of fencing, when his moves are not his own, but that other self from the bank of the river. They do not mind; they laugh with him, pleased that he is unafraid. Gwen convinces him to defy Uther’s ruling, holds his hand as they sign up to train with swords. She kisses his cheek, and he stares at her with serious eyes, trying to determine if she remembers. If she too, is trapped on that banks, waiting for the nameless one to return.

Lance shows up to practice one day, and Arthur just knows they do not remember. There is no guilt in her gentle blush or his harsh stammer. He does not know if he loves them for not knowing, or if he hates them. Gwaine lets him beat his rage into his back, then parries his blows. He works Arthur, twisting, turning, dancing the song of the sword with him until Arthur collapses into his arms. “Where is he, Gwaine? Why will he not show himself? Does he not know his king waits for him?”

If the others think Arthur strange, they say nothing. The simply walk him to a forgotten park, and Leon buys him a drink. “Your birthday is soon anyways.”

Arthur knows he should be grateful, to have his knights, his queen, and his family, but he is so lonely without his servant.

When he is 16, Leon gifts him with a fake I.D. “So you can come out with us.” He doesn’t point out that he’s only a year younger than most of them, save Leon. He simply nods his thanks. He is out with them, drinking far too much, far too fast, in a park that needs a lake when it happens.

_I am so sorry, Arthur, so very sorry. I have wept for you for days. I know my promise, know that I did not keep it. I am going to break another one. Several actually. I cannot-_

_Arthur, I cannot be here, in this place without you. I know I swore to you I would protect Camelot, that I would lay my life down for her, but I did not love her as you did. I did not love her as I loved you._

_I-_

Arthur cannot decide if that is where the letter ends or if he simply woke up, covered in his own sick, stopping the letter. Leon frowns, but Gwaine laughs loud enough to distract. “Come now Princess, tell me that wasn’t your first drink!”

The letters come often after that first one. When he’s sitting in class learning about chemistry.

_Camelot has changed much, since you d- since you left. Her walls begin to crumble. Your wife begins to age. I do not know if it will please you to learn she remarried. She still bore no son._

_Oh, Arthur. Camelot needs you. Desperately and unequivocally. She is nothing without you. No Queen and no King will ever- but alas. It is I who has failed you, thus failing Camelot._

_I’m sorry, my lord._

He hates the tree he’s sucked to. When he’s training with a sword he gets a letter that nearly cost him an Arm.

_I despair to tell you, Sire. Camelot has fallen. I heard the horns, saw the flames. I ran and ran, but you were right. I always was a little slow and clumsy._

_I suppose it’s not so terrible. Everyone I know has abandoned me. I will leave the borders of Camelot tonight, as I cannot bear the rubble, the stone markers. I swore I would not leave you, but I cannot stay._

_This is the last of the promises to you I will break. For now. Come back, and I might break a few more._

Arthur isn’t sure if he cries for the bruise Gwaine has given him, or if he cries for the servant. He stops seeing the psychologist with the dusty tomes. Uther sends him to a woman whose eyes are too blue and whose hair is too dark. He hates her though he has no reason. Hates the knowing way she asks her questions, the way she dismisses his visions as dreams and delusions, the curse of a weak spirit.

_Sometimes, sire, I see them in the babes growing around me. Gwaine, in a bubbly toddler running naked through the streets. Lance, a quiet boy of six trying to woo a girl with dandelions and grass. Leon is a man working a cart and sometimes I even see Mordred, a sly teen sneaking plums._

_I’ve seen them, all of them, the good and the bad. I never see you though. Will you not come back? Will you not spare me this misery_

He stops telling her of the lake and the letters. He pretends he is okay, that he does not wake up while reading Shakespeare, in tears.

_I fell into a lake today. You did not laugh. Nor did you huff in frustration. I resent you, for not laughing. I don’t know how I fell into the lake._

She considers him cured, until he’s nearly gets hit by a bus.

_Oh Arthur. The world changes so quickly and so slowly. They’ve built a city over your tomb. Over everyone’s really, but only yours matters anymore._

_I know, Sire, that's vicious. If you were here you would smack me. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care._

Arthur hates the servant. He cannot remember his name, or how he looks, or why he matters so much, but he rips holes in Arthur’s heart, in his world. He sits, in the back of Arthur’s mind just waiting.

Arthur hates the lake, though he has never been there before, though he can find it on no map. He hates him when he is serious, but he hates even more the voice that tells him of lazy days and of quiet nights.

_I saw a lark today, a quiet little thing. Curled in my hair, and I didn’t have the heart to wake it. I can’t tell you what a nuisance playing old is. Except when I let birds settle. They’re so calm, so peaceful_

_Mostly._

Sometimes the letters feel so familiar, he does not know why he can’t remember.

_Arthur, I tripped today. I’ve taken up a job in a washroom, though they’re usually meant for the ladies. Dolma turns out be a rather glorious disguise for both creating distance between myself and others, and getting jobs that don’t risk my life._

_Anyway, I was carrying the load, larger than anything you could possibly imagine! (Surprising, since we know how you love to wash perfectly clean trousers…)  Anyway, you’d think after Camelot I’d be used to all the stairs, but a sheet caught my leg and now my toe is bleeding._  

He stops telling everyone about the letters when he is eighteen. When he realizes his daily letters are months, or maybe years for this servant, and his heart aches so heavily, he cannot leave his bed.

_The world shifts too much, too fast. I cannot-_

Sometimes, when the letters end abruptly, it’s like Arthur can hear the way the letter writer sobs. Whether he is hearing his own thoughts or not, doesn’t seem to matter. He is ill with the need to know his servant is okay.

_Arthur, my dear Arthur. Sometimes I think I can feel you here, on this earth. It’s like you answer my letters. You’re so quiet, so much quieter than you were in life. I long for the day you call me “idiot,” you call me “fool.” Please, please come home._

_Yours,_

_Arthur, I miss you. I have felt the others return. Gaius, and Geoffrey. Nimueh, though she is powerless. Uther, who is no king. I have heard the cries of your knights at birth, I have heard Gwen’s laugh. I have felt the good of who Morgana could be. I cannot wait for you much longer._

He tells Morgana of the letters when he is nineteen. When she finds him, weeping in his bed.

_I cannot die, Arthur. What have you cursed me with, you arrogant bastard? You, who lives in the lake, who watches my suffering. I have tried poisons and guns, swords and ropes, and still, still I am here. Won’t you please find me. Come and save me, as I have saved you. I am begging you._

_I love you,_

_Merlin_

Morgana, he can tell, does not want to believe him, but she calls Gwaine who curls beside Arthur, who holds his hands and who strokes his hair. “Do you dream of the lake, Arthur? Of the forest and of the lady who guards it?”

“Does it always ache so much, Gwaine? Does it ever go away?”

Gwaine shrugs against him. “I think it depends on who you’re waiting on. Which side of the lake they are on.”

Arthur rolls over, turns against him. “Who are you waiting on, Gwaine?”

He sees the sorrow behind laughing brown eyes. “Which knight is missing, Princess?”

Arthur closes his eyes. “Can you feel him, the way I can feel the servant?”

Gwaine just presses a kiss to his cheek. “I will be ready when he comes.”

Arthur agrees, strongly. “We must be prepared for them, Gwaine.”

Morgana watches them, her own laughter shining is surprisingly playful eyes. She helps them though, apply to university. They cannot convince Gwaine to choose business, or international affairs. He surprises them though, by choosing to become a doctor. Arthur chooses a double major. He figures, if the letters are going to wreck his sleep, he is going to utilize the time for studying.

_I met someone today. It has been so very long. So long I cannot imagine you are returning. His eyes, they were not right. Blue, yes, but blue like a cornflower. Blue like old jeans. Blue like a faded berries wasted in the sun. His hair was yellow, like corn silk, or like a picture burnt by the sun. Still, he was smooth beneath my fingers, gentle beneath my grip. He was nothing like you would have been._

Arthur trashes his desk, when he wakes up from this letter, but he pushes himself, harder and harder. He will graduate top of the class, he will not be second best to a washed out version of himself. Gwaine feeds him wings and beers, forces him to dance and tries to bring him on dates. It does not happen.

_Sire! I know you are here now, as I have met someone you too, will want to meet. I do not understand how it has happened, but I assume you’ll have a very lonely friend, won’t you? I am learning now, to be as you will in this life. I am raising this boy, who remembers, and I want him to fit into this world. I took lessons in the metal dragons. It is far more terrifying than Kilgarah ever was, but I will not give up._

Arthur does not tell Gwaine, but he can see the shine in his eyes, and he wonders, does Gwaine know yet? Still, he is impressed at the servant for choosing to learn to drive of all things. Graduation is close and he wonders what he is to do after.

_I cannot believe, Arthur, in all these years I have avoided bookstores. There is so much knowledge to be taken from these stores. I’ll admit, I cheated to get this place, but what's the use of a millennia of knowledge and wealth if it cannot earn me a few niceties? Percival mans the front counter. I mostly just keep everything organized and pay for it. The poetry section is my favorite, and the largest in the store. I think the world could use more poetry, don’t you, sire?_

_Merlin_

When Arthur graduates, his father offers him a position. He considers not taking it, but Morgana gently reminds him that this is not his dream world, that they are a happy family with a doting father. He takes it, and pretends the fact that Gwaine’s hospital is only minutes away did not affect his decision. He takes to scouring the bookshops in the area, hopeful he will see a face that jogs his memory.

_Arthur!_

_I know you are close. Percival came home today with a rush about his cheeks. He won’t tell me, the rascal, but I know. You are close, so close. I can feel you about me._

Arthur has a habit, every morning, of going to a coffee shop.  A small, dainty little place that Gwaine likes, though he does not say why. Arthur gets something new, something sweet, every time. Today, he has chosen a raspberry mocha concoction, that is the same color as his dark brown shirt.

He’s just turned when someone slams into him, sending hot liquid all over him. “You daft fool!”

He doesn’t dare look up, trying to stop the spread of the stain.

“Me? A daft idiot? You obtuse prat! Who doesn’t look where they’re going when they turn?”

Arthur looks up, prepared to spit curses at the fool who challenges him. He is arrested though, by a dark cloud of hair, and by eyes blue, _blue like ice on a deep lake,_ and shoulders so broad where he remembers them so thin. The man goes on, pink lips shiny with spit. “You utter arse. In your pompous suits and your shiny shoes. I bet you trod all over the little people without a care in the world!”

Merlin, for this man could be no other than his daft servant, turns and walks away. Arthur wants to shout, to scream, to call him to come back but he is frozen until the bell chimes. He calls his office and takes  the day off. Something in him, some voice, refuses to let him leave. He orders another coffee and sits at a table in the back, closing his eyes.

It takes a long time, for the letter to begin.

_You’ll never believe how rude people today can be. Lording their money and their wealth over others. Like every little accident is on purpose, meant to harm them directly. LIke i have the time or the care to bully someone because of their status. He was beautiful, though, so beautiful Arthur. Proud, and dignified. An air about him, like he knew he came from… from a royal bloodline._

_OH! Arthur, have I-? Was that you? Did I really miss- Please, do not be gone!”_

Arthur cannot help but smirk, and wait. When the bell chimes, he looks up, and there is a wild look about Merlin, until he sees Arthur. He falls to his knees in the doorway, shoulders shaking. Arthur rushes to him, tries to lift him by his shoulders.

“Merlin. You’re much less fragile, than I remember. Tell me, did you laze about with no king to serve?” He means it to be a joke, but Merlin sobs harder, traces the planes of his face with thick hands scarred by many years of… of experience Arthur will not consider. They are causing people to stare though, and so Arthur gently leads Merlin out of the shop and walks him to his own apartment.

“I am here, Merlin. I am here now.”

Merlin nods against him. He cups Arthur's cheeks. “Here and real, and may I kiss you?”

“Are my eyes blue eough? Is my hair yellow enough?”

“Are you jealous enough to turn me away?”

Arthur laughs, and then leans in. “A king does not ask, he takes. But here I am not king, and you are no servant.”

Merlin nods, and the press of their lips is gentle. “Here we are equals, who have escaped the abyss.”

  



End file.
